Up, Up and away.......

The past two days have presented futures day traders with painful chop that made us all sit back and question our momentum indicators. There were sharp up-thrusts immediately followed by down thrusts within the same 2 minute bar leading to many a false signals on the shorter time-frames. But for those that have experienced this before, you were able to tell that this was the battle ground between the bulls and the bears. For me, that meant going on auto pilot and sprinkling in some discretionary scalp trading techniques. Not that I was abandoning my indicator forever, but just during these indecisive times. I am aware that, during these times, that support and resistance are targets to be shot for, but that reversals off of these locations are important areas to watch. These locations include globex high/low, doldrums high/low, double bottoms/tops of significant moves intraday and over the past two days, 50-61.8 fib retracement areas off of significant moves intraday and over the past day, etc. None of these things work for momentum signals because not enough momentum can get going before the signal reverses itself off of support or resistance. Yesterday was no exception. We spent all of the afternoon session in the doldrum chop zone, but I captured the late afternoon pattern that reared its head the day before. That is, with supreme hesitation, the market chops and chops and cops during the day, but gives up its tell the last hour. I noticed the run up at the end of the day and, since we usually get at least a few days of these tells, I decided to go long at the end of the day. I additionally decided to hold it overnight due to a number of factors, (1) big earnings coming out after the close with tech stocks, (2) no expectations for surprises on the earnings front, (3) remembering CSCO Chambers being all geeked out last quarter about how great the world economy is and knowing that this would not just vaporize in one quarter, and (4) a penchant for high risk for high dollar gain. End result was positive upside overnight - doesn't always happen this way, but this is trading.

I peeled off 1/3rd position on my YM holdings and 1/2 of my ER2 holding - I ain't a total dumb shit.

YM: +85 ticks 1/3rd position (equal to +$425 on one contract position)

ER2: +68 ticks 1/2 position (equal to +$680 on one contract position)